Texas women charged with murder after abortion files lawsuit, gets green light from judge
Texas woman Lizelle Gonzalez was arrested and charged with murder in 2022 following a self-managed abortion. After spending two nights in jail and making national news headlines, she has now filed a lawsuit against the prosecutors. In a hearing Wednesday, a federal judge gave the green light for the lawsuit to proceed.
Here's what we know.
Texas woman's $1M lawsuit can move forward, district judge says
At a Wednesday hearing in McAllen, U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton struck down a motion to drop a lawsuit filed by a Texas woman.
South Texas woman Lizelle Gonzalez initiated the lawsuit against two district attorneys after she was arrested and charged with murder in "the death of an individual by self-induced abortion" in 2022. Although the charges were quickly dropped, Gonzalez is seeking $1 million in damages after spending two nights in jail and becoming the subject of unwanted media coverage following the incident.
Gonzalez's attorney Cecilia Garza says the experience changed her life forever.
"She does suffer from anxiety. A lot of it related to the arrest and the incarceration," Garza said. "She wasn’t able to be here today because she was just concerned about how it might affect her. But she’s very happy with today’s rulings."
Background on the case: Lizelle Gonzalez is suing the Texas prosecutors who charged her criminally after abortion
Gonzalez claims she was falsely arrested in 2022
Gonzalez, then 26, spent three days in jail in April 2022 after Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez and Assistant District Attorney Alexandria Barrera filed an indictment against her for causing the death of her unborn child after she took an abortion medication at 19 weeks pregnant.
The case came several months after Texas Senate Bill 8 passed, barring abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and allowing private parties to sue anyone for "aiding and abetting" an abortion. However, the law bars mothers from being charged for murder in the death of their own unborn child.
Read more: More infants have died since Texas anti-abortion heartbeat law took effect, study shows
Defendants claim immunity from civil lawsuit
Ramirez and other defendants on the case say their positions grant them immunity from civil lawsuits, The Associated Press reports. Ramirez also told the news outlet he "made a mistake" in filing the charges against Gonzalez.
During Wednesday's hearing, defense attorney Rick Navarro argued that it was "at worst a negligence case." Judge Tipton asked Gonzalez's attorneys if they could prove the prosecutors knew mothers were except from abortion-related murder charges.
“What we intend to show is that negligence doesn’t explain this oversight. It is the role and function of prosecutors to be aware of the elements of the statutes that they are charging,” said David Donatti, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas who is representing Gonzalez.
Gonzalez hospitalized after 'incomplete' abortion
Gonzalez, then Lizelle Herrera, visited a local hospital on Jan. 7, 2022, after she took misoprostol to induce an abortion, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. After doctors still detected a fetal heartbeat, she was discharged and asked to follow up several days later.
Minutes after her discharge, Gonzalez went to the hospital's emergency room with abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding. Doctors found the fetal heartbeat had stopped, and the abortion had been "incomplete" and "spontaneous." A doctor performed a Caesarean section on Gonzalez to deliver her stillborn child.
Hospital staff violated federal privacy laws, Gonzalez says
In her lawsuit, Gonzalez has accused staff at Starr County Memorial Hospital for violating her privacy after they reported her self-induced abortion to the Starr County District Attorney's Office in the months after her hospital visit.
Attorneys Ramirez and Barrera filed the murder charge against Gonzalez on March 30, 2022. According to the complaint, the indictment was based solely on Barrera's examination of reports from the hospital. The lawsuit charges the pair with making "misrepresentations of the facts and the law to a grand jury, recklessly and callously disregarding the rights of plaintiff, allowing a malicious prosecution to commence against her."
An investigatory panel convened by the Texas State Bar in March of last year also fined Ramirez $1,250 for pursuing criminal charges against Gonzalez. The panel banned Ramirez from practicing law for a one year period that began on Monday. Ramirez will be able to keep practicing law if he complies with a settlement reached in January, The Associated Press reported.
The Starr County Sheriff's Department and Rio Grande Police Department were also included in the complaint after allegedly failing to investigate the charge.
— USA TODAY reporter Cybele Mayes-Osterman contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas woman's lawsuit after abortion-related murder charge proceeds
